KEPOKT OF COMMITTEE ON GAKDENHSTG. 135 



flow being conducted underground to the edge of the bank, these 

 making a pretty artificial brook and fall. From this tank the water 

 is easil}^ distributed by pipes to any desirable point, and gives 

 ample head for chambers and fountains. This large reservoir is 

 invisible from the grounds, being completely enclosed in a pictur- 

 esque and ornamental tower of Middlesex stone brick. Its base 

 is a parallelogram, eighteen feet high, or, more properly speaking, 

 a square with an entrance-porch, having bands and ornaments 

 of chocolate-colored bricks ; the corners, cornices and trimmings 

 being of rose-colored granite, of neat design. Above this base 

 rises an octagon tower about sixty feet from the ground, where a 

 platform or floor ten feet square covers it, and a bell-tower roof, 

 standing on columns, lifts its head some thirty-five feet higher in 

 the air ; the structure being arranged with a spiral stairway of iron 

 around the centre column, with numerous windows to light the 

 ascent and furnish views of exquisite beauty. From the top of 

 this observatory, the vistas are truly charming, — the far-reaching 

 Charles, with its rich intervals and forests ; the distant hills of 

 Nonantum, the spires and villages of neighboring towns, and the 

 glimpses of the broad sea. You there breathe the pure air from 

 the summits of Sharon, and feel a new life. The work has been 

 thoroughly done, and up to the time of writing this report, all has 

 run well, and the water in the spring has not become frozen. 



At the time of the visit, a large cold graper}^, 100x25 feet, con- 

 stituting one grand room, tasteful and convenient, and finely pro- 

 portioned (constructed by F. A. Lord, of Irvington, N. Y.), with 

 curvilinear glass sides and roof, without posts or centre-supports, 

 had been completed ; and seventy-five young and vigorous vines 

 had been conducted through the apertures in the wall, and were 

 already established. These vines were taken from their pots 

 when six or eight feet high, in the heat of the first days of Au- 

 gust, and after a thorough shaking of earth from the roots, were 

 planted in the richly prepared borders, and have never gone back, 

 or changed in leaf or growth for the worse ; but, on the contrarj'-, 

 have flourished and grown finely, showing how successfully, with 

 proper preparation and care, a planting out of season may be 

 made. 



The Committee were much impressed by the neatness, symmetry 

 and beauty of this grapery, as well as by the mode of its con- 

 struction. Not a nail or a joint was to be seen, the whole 



